acrylic effect goes away when window loses focus

[ethanhowell]

Environment

Windows build number: Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.418]
Windows Terminal version (if applicable): 0.6.2951.0

Any other software?

Steps to reproduce

1. Open up Windows Terminal. Open up any other window. Make sure windows terminal has the useAcrylic set to tru and the opacity set to something like .5. Snap the two windows to either side. When Terminal is in focus the acrylic will work. When it's not it will not.

Expected behavior

The acrylic effect to stay whether or not terminal is in focus.

Actual behavior

The acrylic effect only appears when terminal is in focus

[d-bingham]

This is just part of how the Windows UI works -- Acrylic effects fade in and out depending on focus.

[WorldMaker]

Terminal feels like a case where it would be great to have the opposite: acrylic to blend into the background when inactive and not when focused.

[zadjii-msft]

This has been discussed to death why it's not possible unfortunately.

Unfortunately this is by design.
The system-level policy for all acrylic applications is that only the active/focused window is allowed to display it.
So there is no parameter or config that you can use to always display it.

This is, unfortunately, by design. System policy dictates (and Windows controls this, not Terminal(!)) that only a currently-active window can be displayed with the acrylic effect.

It may be difficult due to the limitations of the OS.

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/style/acrylic#usability-and-adaptability

In addition, only background acrylic will replace its translucency and texture with a solid color:

• When an app window on desktop deactivates
• When the UWP app is running on phone, Xbox, HoloLens or tablet mode

/dup #2326 #1886 #1747 #1546 #1505 #1099 #593 #3336 #2763 #2698

[ghost]

Hi! We've identified this issue as a duplicate of another one that already exists on this Issue Tracker. This specific instance is being closed in favor of tracking the concern over on the referenced thread. Thanks for your report!

[Pitta]

Just realized I could do this.
Came here to be sad about the out of focus lack of acrylic blur.

This is a bummer.

[zadjii-msft]

@Pitta If you'd take a look at #7158, there's a potential solution that just requires a decent amount of work to investigate and apply.

[zadjii-msft]

If you'd read, you'd find that #15923 was merged last month, fixing #7158 (and this issue).